Japan's war movies really are a different beast from other countries' war movies, aren't they? American war movies tend to focus more on the soldiers, the action, the violence and death, or, for some reason, romance. I haven't seen war movies produced by other countries like Italy, Germany, or China, so I don't know how they go about it. I do know that the majority of Japan's war movies, or the ones I've seen at least, tend to place more emphasis on the children, the slice-of-life, and character development before getting into the war stuff. Grave of the Fireflies, In This Corner of the World,
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Totto-chan, Who's Left Behind, Barefoot Gen, Glass Rabbit, and more recently, Cocoon. Granted, I know a lot of this is because Japan doesn't like acknowledging their own war crimes and adopting a victim mentality, and I don't think I need to reiterate that Japan needs to do more to acknowledge its own part in World War II. However, I also feel that Japan's war movies and war media have value in their own right. Cocoon is an...interesting movie, not just because of how different it looks from the original manga, but the changes it makes in the adaptation process do make me raise my eyebrows.
Based on the 2009 manga by Machiko Kyo, which came out 65 years to the day that World War II ended, Cocoon centers on two girls, San and Mayu, who go to an exclusive all-girls school down in Okinawa in the closing months of World War II. The girls and their friends make the best of things as much as they can, but it's not easy. Later, the entire class is drafted into becoming rear-line nurses to care for wounded soldiers, hiding in a cave and turning it into a makeshift hospital. This makes things complicated for San as she's not too fond of men, but she perseveres with Mayu and all her friends by her side. But war is a cruel beast, and as the world around them burns to the ground, San and Mayu lose all of their beloved friends one by one. The road to survival becomes more hellish by the day.
One thing that really stuck out to me and others who read the manga is that the art style is drastically different from the manga. The manga opts for a more deliberately sketchy, childish, unpolished drawing style with watercolor backgrounds and screentones, evoking a child's drawings. The anime opts for a more polished, Ghibli-esque look, which makes sense as one of the producers for this is Hitomi Tateno, a former Ghibli animator. I can only assume that the producers made the decision not to try to adapt Machiko Kyo's style to animation, maybe because doing so might have been too difficult or something. I don't hate this decision, as the animation for Cocoon is still gorgeous all the same. The Ghibli influence is clearly there, but the simplistic yet unique character designs, detailed backgrounds, and stunning imagery really bring this story to life in a new way. Hell, the actual director for this movie, Toko Ina, did the animation for The Chronicles of Rebecca and key animation for Eizouken and The Heike Story. For their first time doing a long movie like this, the team they assembled at Sasayuri did an amazing job. The soundtrack by Kensuke Ushio is nice too, though not one of his more memorable scores.
The characters, while fine on their own in the movie, went through quite a lot of changes in the transition from comic to screen. Many of the manga's characters were straight up cut out, with their fates given to other existing characters. One big change is the character of Tamaki. In the manga, she was just a vain, lazy girl who cared too much about her looks, couldn't handle the horrors of war, and is unceremoniously killed in a pretty horrific way. Here, she's still vain, but is much more proactive and helpful, proving to be an important confidant to San. Hina is also given slightly more relevance, though her manner of death is vastly different here compared to the manga. Actually, the anime changes a lot of characters' manner of deaths, assigning them fates that manga-only characters were subjected to. I can only assume this was done to streamline things, especially since the movie runs only an hour long, and the movie wanted to focus more on the characters that were more present throughout. The existing characters are fine characters, not the most fleshed out but still compelling in how they're children forced to grow up during a terrible time and made to see/do things no child should ever have to go through.
The anime even adds subplots that weren't in the manga. For one, there's a whole running thread about San making a birthday present for Mayu but not giving it to her because the twins made her a better present, and she doesn't give it to Mayu until the end of the movie. This was not present in the manga, not to mention all of the new scenes given to Tamaki and Hina to expand their characterization. But the anime removes just as much as it adds. For one, no mention is made of Yuri's back scars, and several characters in the manga aren't present at all in the anime. The movie also made the decision to remove a lot of the gore and violence (Except for one important scene at the very end), and even in the violent scenes they leave in, blood is...replaced with flower petals for some reason. I can only assume they made the blood and violence symbolic because the networks would probably get mad at them for showing children suffering graphically, but...I don't know, changing the blood to flower petals comes off as kinda silly when you're trying to show how horrific war is. The manga never tried to hide the fact that its characters died in really horrible, graphic ways, like being disembowled, blown to pieces, or covered in maggots. Plus, other war movies before this never shied away from showing people being killed in horrible ways, so why did they have to tone it down here (Again, except for one scene at the end)? Did Japan's broadcasting standards change their rules about this or something, or was it because Cocoon was being broadcast on public TV and they didn't want it to be too intense? Who knows?
Speaking of questionable decisions, I have to go into spoiler territory here because there's two changes they made that I wasn't a big fan of. In the manga, San is almost raped by a soldier, and Mayu manages to save her and kill the man in question by suffocating him to death. San never finds out about it until Mayu tells her later. But in the anime, San wakes up as Mayu is choking the man and...stops her from killing him. Why? This change did nothing for the story other than have San find out Mayu's secret much earlier, and having San save him is out of character for her because she hates men. Not only that, the manga explicitly stated that the man who tried to assault her was one of the soldiers they helped in the makeshift hospital, which further traumatizes San because she can't fathom that someone she tried to help would repay her kindness by attempting to rape her. It's basically a scathing critique on Japanese imperialism and how, in Japan's crusade to become the strongest power in the world, they basically treated their own citizens as disposable and didn't consider how their actions would affect them. So changing it so that San saves her rapist from Mayu and having the rapist survive completely goes against the manga's anti-imperialism message. Later in the manga, San and Mayu come across another nursing unit that plan to all commit suicide together because they want to die on their own terms and not get raped by any soldiers that find them. For some reason, the movie made it so that San and Mayu's nursing unit, all their classmates, are the ones that do this, removing any mention of them not wanting to get raped by soldiers, even though in the manga, they all died at that point, with the twins Mari and Yuri having starved to death immediately before this happens. Not only that, it dilutes the impact of an earlier scene supposedly showing everyone dying among gunfire, so it feels like a complete cop-out to have them survive only to then suddenly show them all committing suicide together when they had never established wanting to do so previously.
I honestly wonder if the producers consulted Machiko Kyo about the film and got her to approve of these changes, or did them without her permission. I want to like this movie, and by itself, it's a perfectly fine war movie about young girls trying to survive. You can enjoy it without having read the manga, especially since Machiko Kyo's works haven't been legally translated into English that I know of. But having read the manga and seeing the changes the anime made, I honestly recommend reading the manga, as it's a much stronger, more compelling, more visceral experience that'll stick with you. I still enjoy the movie for what it is, and I'll certainly watch it over a lot of the slop that's churned out these days, but again, I seriously question why the staff made the changes that they did, because a lot of them just straight up don't make sense if you know about the manga. Cocoon isn't a bad movie by any means, far from it, and as a standalone feature, it's still a sad, compelling movie that'll make you think. However, I think this is one of those times where the anime adaptation just doesn't do the original source justice, especially with how it completely discards the manga's original messages in favor of being just another sad war movie where almost everybody dies.
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Apr 13, 2025 Mixed Feelings
Japan's war movies really are a different beast from other countries' war movies, aren't they? American war movies tend to focus more on the soldiers, the action, the violence and death, or, for some reason, romance. I haven't seen war movies produced by other countries like Italy, Germany, or China, so I don't know how they go about it. I do know that the majority of Japan's war movies, or the ones I've seen at least, tend to place more emphasis on the children, the slice-of-life, and character development before getting into the war stuff. Grave of the Fireflies, In This Corner of the World,
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Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Mar 8, 2025
Love Live! Superstar!! 3rd Season
(Anime)
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Not Recommended
Oh, Love Live Superstar, how far you've fallen. As someone who's not normally into Love Live, the first two seasons of it at least, I actually enjoyed both Nijigasaki and Superstar. The first season of Superstar was a nice, refreshing, adorable little schoolgirl series, even if it made the mistake of retreading old ground the original series and Sunshine already tackled, and actually managed its cast of characters quite well. The second season was a little weaker and didn't have as much of a handle on its new characters as it would have liked, but I still enjoyed it. Unfortunately, the third and final season
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should have ended this iteration with a bang, but instead ended it with little more than a pathetic whimper. Superstar deserved so much better than this, and the problems season two had are multiplied tenfold here. I don't know what in the world happened, but they really dropped the ball with this final season.
First of all, you know that whole cliffhanger at the end of season 2 that everyone made out to be this super sad, melodramatic thing? Season 3 decided to completely cop out on that, keep Kanon in Yuigaoka for absolutely ridiculous, stupid reasons that just scream contrived plot convenience, and then try to make Margarete into an ally! Like...what? Actually, this whole thing sums up the biggest problem behind Superstar's third season: It's writing. The whole season feels completely and utterly directionless, like it wrote itself into a corner by trying to send Kanon to Vienna, but then went back on that and now they don't know what to do with the series anymore. Their whole solution was to drag out the series by having Kanon, Margarete, and another girl, Natsumi's sister Tomari, form their own idol group to compete against Liella, but why even do that if you're just going to have them rejoin Liella again anyway? The whole idol group vs idol group thing feels less like a compelling plot and more like an excuse to drag the series out for longer than it needs to. Furthermore, the whole setup completely gets in the way of fleshing out the rest of the cast, especially the second years, who get almost nothing to do here. Writers, you could have used this time to flesh out the other characters but instead wasted your time on a cheesy, mealymouthed redemption arc for a pink-haired brat who honestly had no business being in Superstar in the first place. Speaking of unneeded characters, Tomari. I'm sorry, but I don't know why the creators bothered to even put her here as well. She honestly feels completely superfluous, has no real purpose for being here, and her whole characterization makes absolutely no sense. She doesn't want Natsumi to be hurt, but she decides to hurt her the second she decides she wants to do something meaningful with her life? Consistency should not be this hard, people! Tomari, to me, represents this season's lack of direction, because just like the season itself, it feels like she was just shoehorned into the show because of executive mandate. Then again, I still don't like Natsumi because she's still a brat who got off way too easy for trying to break Liella up and sow conflict between them for clout and views in the previous season, and this season did nothing to change that for me. Not to mention Margarete still being an emo brat whose redemption arc feels in no way earned, sincere, or even natural whatsoever. Everyone deserved so much better. Even the whole plot about Keke having to choose between staying an idol or staying in China feels so half-baked because previous seasons made it into a huge deal, only for everything to be magically resolved by the power of idols, thereby undermining any tension or personal stakes it could have had. Gag me. The animation and music are fine, not much to say there. I still think season one's songs are better, but the ones here are fairly good by themselves. Actually, going back to the results of last season's cliffhanger: What school would reach out to a random student in Japan and ask her to come to Vienna, only to suddenly back out of it at the last second?! Isn't that, like, super unprofessional? Wouldn't that break a ton of bureaucratic rules or something? God, you know the writing in this season is bullshit when none of its established plotlines make any lick of sense! Seriously, Superstar seemed like it was going to really experiment with the Love Live formula, only for it to just go back to playing it super safe because it's afraid of alienating its audience. I mean, there is going to be a new series called Love Live Bluebird, implied to be going in the direction of Bang Dream: It's MyGO or Ave Mujica, and for all I know, maybe that one will be better. I don't know. I'm just mad that Superstar, a season that started off strong and had a lot of potential to learn from the mistakes of its forebears and do something new, had to end in such a pathetic, unsatisfying manner. I'm not gonna waste any more time on this. Poor Love Live Superstar. An utterly lackluster, poorly executed season 3 served as its death knell, bogged down by haphazard writing and a lack of care for any of its characters. God, Superstar deserved so much better than this!
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Mar 2, 2025 Not Recommended
Oh, Trapezium, you could have been a much better movie. Trapezium is based on a 2018 novel by former Nogizaka46 member Kazumi Takayama, about a young girl, Yu Azuma, who wants to become an idol so much that she decides to manipulate three girls from different schools into being her friends and making an idol group. Now, the fact that the original story was penned by a former idol does give the movie a lot of necessary context for its background, premise, and overall approach, with her experiences influencing the story quite a bit, especially in regards to how Yu, the main character, drives the
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entire plot. It also raises the question of what kind of behind-the-scenes behavior Takayama may have witnessed during her idol tenure. On the whole, Trapezium as a movie is really compelling in that it doesn't go for the tried and true method of selling you on how great idols are and going for an uplifting story. Instead, Trapezium explores both the good and bad of the idol industry and how it can both positively and negatively affect the people in and out of it. It even takes a huge risk by having its protagonist be unlikeable and even a manipulative little brat, which you don't often see in most anime. On one hand, this is a ballsy movie, and I respect the movie for going against the grain.
Unfortunately, on the other hand, its whole scaffolding completely falls apart at the end, completely ruining what it had established, reducing it into just yet another idol movie that plays it safe. But before I go into detail on this, I'm going to talk about the positives first, as I don't want to be a purely Negative Nancy. Being a movie, the animation budget is put to good use here, and is beautifully grounded. Characters move like real human beings, CGI is used sparingly, the backgrounds are detailed but not cluttered, and the character designs are a nice mix of realistic and the moe art style without leaning too hard on the latter. The music is nice too, though I really have to question why the movie needed a whole-ass anime opening sequence. Like, was that even necessary? Furthermore, out of the four girls, I liked Kurumi the most, because not only was she the most relatable and interesting, the movie does a great job at selling you on her plight, though that's not to say the other girls are poorly characterized. Plus, for 90% of the movie, Trapezium's exploration of the idol industry and how it metaphorically uses and abuses idols is interesting and compelling. A large portion of it focuses more on the journey to getting there, such as how most idols get exposure through comedic variety shows. Unlike most idol anime, Trapezium doesn't put as much focus on music and dancing, but the snippets of it we do get do their job and don't overstay their welcome. I actually think it does a better job at exploring the perils of the idol/entertainment industry than Oshi no Ko, if only because the latter's take on it feels more performative and tactless in that it's more interested in shock value and easy solutions than actually doing anything meaningful. Yeah, I said it, I don't like Oshi no Ko. Sadly, this is all the praise I have for Trapezium as a movie, because like I mentioned earlier, its ending completely ruins it. What do I mean? Yu, the story's main character, is both Trapezium's greatest asset and biggest weakness. From here on, I'm going to go into a ton of spoilers because I can't adequately explain my thoughts on the movie without doing so, as the context is really important. The story is about her recruiting three girls into forming an idol group with her through extremely underhanded, manipulative tactics, made apparent during Mika's segment. Mika is a girl who loves doing volunteer work because she loves helping people, not doing it to boost her ego or for ulterior motives. Yu only sees doing volunteer work as a tool to get the girls on TV, seeing it as performative and a stepping stone to success. In that same scene, Yu balks at the idea of being in a separate group from two of the other girls, and spends the whole sequence being a spoiled brat about it, which, on one hand, is a great set-up for the drama that comes later because it establishes her self-centered nature, and her selfishness and hubris ultimately proves to be the group's undoing. In one scene, when Mika is revealed to have a boyfriend, Yu acts like a total bitch to her, showing a disturbing lack of empathy for her situation, which the other girls are similarly appalled by. Yu loves being in the spotlight, whereas Kurumi doesn't, and at one point, Kurumi has a full-on meltdown because she can't handle both being on TV and the stringent expectations idols are expected to uphold, which results in the girls falling out and disbanding. Normally, drama like this is great, because the movie shows how Yu's manipulative nature, lack of empathy, and using people for her own ends causes problems for everyone, and the scenes where she's made to face the consequences of her actions are a great culmination to her arc. Her drive to become an idol resulted in her exploiting the other girls and giving them a big helping of psychological trauma. However, the thing that completely ruins the movie for me is how it decides to wrap things up. Even after all that Yu has done to them, the movie decides to have them all suddenly become friends again, with them even praising Yu for bringing them together in the first place. Sure, let's completely ignore the fact that Yu basically used them and gave Kurumi psychological trauma, she feels bad about it, so it's okay! I'm sorry, but no, Yu should not have been forgiven. The ramifications of her actions should have been far bigger than the movie actually showed. Kurumi wouldn't have had her breakdown if Yu hadn't dragged her into idolatry in the first place and forced her into a position that she wasn't comfortable with, and the damage this could do in real life would probably be irreparable. The other girls have every right to not want anything to do with Yu after all the shit she pulled on them, Kurumi especially, because Yu is responsible for all of their suffering...and yet the movie wants to sweep all that under the rug in favor of wrapping things up in an overly saccharine, cheesy, mealymouthed ending where everything is all hunky-dory and the girls are still friends? Fuck that! If I was in Kurumi, Ranko, and Mika's positions, I'd completely drop Yu as a friend because I would not want to be anywhere near the person who caused the level of suffering that she put them through! I feel like a better ending for the movie would have been if the girls stopped being friends, just went their own ways in life, and Yu would have to live with the fact that she made the girls suffer because of her selfishness. It would have not only accentuated the movie's themes of how exploitative and stringent the idol industry can be, it would have added another layer in that not everyone comes out of the idol industry unscathed. The logic behind this movie's decisions at the end just baffle me. But not committing to its premise isn't the only problem it has. For one thing, how the hell is Yu able to get away with getting into different schools, while in uniform, without getting kicked out? Shouldn't a staff member or security guard have spotted her and made her leave? Plus, Trapezium's pacing is rather rushed, especially in the beginning. Yu tracks down the girls she wants to manipulate/recruit, talks to them for a bit, and then boom, suddenly they're buddy-buddy, which totally isn't inorganic and suspicious in any way whatsoever. Not to mention a lot of plot beats are just summarized by voice over narration rather than actually being shown, because fuck meaningful character development and showing over telling, am I right? Also, who the hell thought it was a good idea to have two elderly men be voiced by women?! I'm not even exaggerating, there's two old men who are VERY CLEARLY voiced by women who are trying to make their voices sound elderly and failing miserably at it, because not only is it completely obvious that their voices are female, they can't even manage to sound convincingly elderly, especially since they're trying to play men. Like, how hard was it to get more than one elderly male voice actor to voice an elderly man? I mean, Akio Ohtsuka, Kazuhiro Yamaji, and Yoku Shioya are still working! Why not hire them to do it?! It's better than forcing two women to play a role that they're clearly unable to pull off! Bottom line, Trapezium had an interesting premise but completely botched it by choosing to suddenly play it safe at the very end, ruining what came before. It could have been a great movie had it gone all in on what it wanted to do, but instead tripped over itself for the sake of wanting a sloppy happy ending. I wouldn't recommend this one, even for fans of idol anime. If you do plan on watching it though, don't watch it on Crunchyroll. For some reason, the audio mixing on that version is atrocious. Like, the volume level is so low, I have to turn up the volume to the highest level and it's still hard to hear anything, whether it be a PC or a TV! Just wait for the Japanese blu-ray to come out or something.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Feb 23, 2025
Tensui no Sakuna-hime
(Anime)
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Mixed Feelings
Okay...who was expecting this? Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is a video game that came out in 2020 and became surprisingly popular. I bought the video game at a random GameStop because it was on sale for cheap, though I haven't gotten around to playing it yet. I really ought to remedy that. But the game was so popular that PA Works decided to adapt it into an anime, which aired from July to September of 2024. Hell, the game was successful enough that there's not only going to be a second anime season, but a whole new sequel game that's currently in production. But
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this review is just going to be for the anime. I figured I'd watch this as a means to familiarize myself with Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin before playing the game, and...it's alright. I like the anime okay, but like most game-to-screen adaptations, it suffers from the fact that it's a 12-episode anime trying to adapt a game that's 30-50 hours long.
In the far eastern corner of the country of Yanato, it has been believed since ancient times that there are two worlds in this land: the world at the top where the gods live and the world at the foot of the mountain where humans live. Princess Sakuna, a high-ranking deity who lives in the world of the summit, was born to a war god and a fertility god is a spoiled brat who would rather spend her days lazing around and drinking than doing any work herself, wasting the grains her parents had stored like a trust fund kid. One day, due to some strange circumstances involving a group of humans that wandered into the Lofty Realm, she is banished from the city of the gods and sent to Hinoe Island—an isolated island inhabited by demons—accompanied by the humans in question. In a barren land where there is barely enough food for the next day, she cultivates the soil, grows rice, and sets out to defeat the demons. The humans who have stumbled into the world of the gods and the novice fertility god begin their rice-husk-filled communal life together. As far as its production values go, Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin's anime is fine. The backgrounds are detailed, the character designs are faithful to their game counterparts, the fight scenes are well choreographed, and the actual animation is decent. It'd be pretty hard to adapt the game's thick linework and unique style into animation, but for the most part, it does its job well with what it has. Honestly, compared to another PA Works anime, Nanare Hananare, Sakuna's production values are far superior. At least Sakuna doesn't go the route of giving everything and everyone gaudy colored outlines that make everything look radioactive and a literal assault on the eyes. The execution of stuff like that really makes a world of difference in either making or breaking a show. Yeah, I couldn't resist taking the potshot at Narenare. I have even less to say about the soundtrack. It's fine, it does its job, I don't know if it reuses BGM from the games or not, but I did like what was there. I like the ending theme better than the opening theme. Speaking as someone who hasn't played the game, I'm sad to say that the characters definitely suffer from the transition from game to anime. Honestly, the characters are pretty bland and are only memorable because of their character designs rather than their personalities, and even when they do get development, they stop being relevant after they change a little bit and don't get to do anything anymore. Now, to be fair, it's impossible to compress a several hour long game into a 12-episode anime, so of course a lot would have to be left on the cutting board. But the writing around the characters sometimes feels so haphazard that it feels like they change personalities whenever the plot feels its convenient. For example, at one point, Sakuna finds Kaimaru nursing a demon's injuries, and she gets angry and tries to kill the demon...and seconds later she's like "Nah, I won't kill you after all because I forgive you and don't want to continue the cycle of hatred." Even though beforehand there was nothing that indicated that hatred was even a running plot thread, so it feels less like Sakuna is actually developing as a character and more like the writers putting stuff in her mouth because they wrote themselves into a corner and hastily slapped a random Deus Ex Machina together. Even without knowledge of the game, the characters' development feels really rushed. I like that Sakuna is forced to grow from being a spoiled brat to someone more capable, that's actually one of the anime's strengths, but the other characters are made to be bum rushed through their development, making any growth they receive have less impact. Oh, and the villains are so generic and laughably cliche that I can't even remember their names. That's not even going into how strange the plot gets, and I don't mean that in a good way. One episode goes into Yui's backstory...and suddenly introduces aliens that come right the hell out of nowhere, contribute absolutely nothing to the narrative, disappear, and nobody so much as comments on it, or they only mention it nonchalantly and move on to the next thing. I'm sure the game goes into it, probably, but the anime treats this whole thing like a Big-Lipped Aligator Moment and makes no effort to actually explain just what the hell these aliens are! Plus, their whole existence just raises a ton of questions that are never answered: Are all the demons on the island just weird aliens? Is the “Lofty Realm” not a divine realm for gods but just some advanced civilization posing as them? Are these places even on the same planet?! You can't dump aliens into my medieval fantasy farming show without some kind of elaboration! This whole bit was just so baffling and out of nowhere that it made me wonder just who the hell thought that was a good idea. Speaking of, the second half of the anime starts to go off the rails as it rushes through important plot points and doesn't really try to give them any real gravitas whatsoever, cutting out important bits from the game for the sake of getting through the story. For example, at one point Sakuna finds out that her friend Kokorowa has been conspiring against her and confronts her about it. The anime just has the two of them talk and it's played for some needless comedy, while in the game, it's a full-on boss fight. There's also all the later reveals about Kaimaru, which just absolutely scream Deus Ex Machina, and they're just as bad as they sound. Also, the anime has a pretty huge continuity error that I'm surprised nobody caught: One episode states that it takes three years for Sakuna and her friends to rebuild their destroyed home and fields...yet the characters are never shown physically aging. For Sakuna this makes sense since she's a goddess, but everyone else is human, and you'd think they'd physically grow up a bit, with their designs changing over the course of those three years, but nope, they look and stay the same, even Kaimaru, a toddler. Like...what? How did this get past quality control? In the end, Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, for all its effort, is yet another addition to the pile of middling to bad video game adaptations that don't manage to do its source material justice. That said, it did get me curious about the game, so it's got that going for it. But I recommend skipping this one, especially if you like the game in question. It's still better than the incoherent mess that is Nanare Hananare!
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Feb 2, 2025
Akage no Anne
(Anime)
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Recommended
I've already mentioned my history with Anne of Green Gables in my previous reviews of both the books and the Before Green Gables anime, so I won't repeat myself here. But I will gladly go on and on about how much I love the World Masterpiece Theater and their adaptations of various Western children's literature every chance I get. Several of my favorite anime come from there, and sure enough, Anne of Green Gables was one of many books that Japan decided to adapt into an anime in the year 1979. Anne as a series actually has quite the history when it came to being
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brought to Japan, which this article here (anneofgreengables. com/blog-posts/how-anne-became-popular-in-japan ) goes into great detail about. Not only that, famous anime director Isao Takahata was head director of the series, with Hayao Miyazaki doing layouts and scene designs for a good chunk of episodes and animated the opening sequence. If you're interested in a deep-dive history behind the anime's production, I highly recommend you read this article about Anne on AnimeTudes (animetudes. com/2022/05/08/anne-of-green-gables). There's a lot of interesting things in there, such as why anime Anne looks the way she does, behind the scenes woes, and additional history on why Anne as a character was so fascinating to a Japanese audience. Anne of Green Gables has had many adaptations across its lifetime, from the earliest movies, the 1979 anime, the famous 1985 Ken Sullivan mini series starring Megan Follows, Netflix's Anne With an E, and a new trilogy of films from 2016-2017 (Which from I've heard, that film trilogy is...not very good).
The story centers on two adult siblings, Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, who live in a farm on the beautiful Prince Edward Island in the late 1800s. Matthew is getting on in years, so they decide to adopt a boy from an orphanage to have him help around the farm. Yeah, this was apparently a common practice in late 19th century Canada. But a miscommunication has them wind up with a girl, instead, and this girl—Anne Shirley—isn't any ordinary child. She's an outgoing, talkative, energetic red haired kid who loves to imagine things and is a romantic idealist despite the bad life she had up to this point. Although Marilla and Matthew do their best to bring her up, they can't contain her wild energy, and Anne finds herself in a variety of situations, like making friends, dealing with boys, learning things in school, wishing she could follow current fashion trends despite Marilla's distaste for anything extravagant and fashionable, and so on. One thing's for sure: Avonlea won't be the same with her around, and maybe this will prove to be a good thing for everyone involved. For an anime that was made in 1979, Anne of Green Gables looks absolutely amazing. The hand-painted backgrounds are a feast for the eyes, using earthy tones and soft colors that really make Avonlea come right to life. You could take a single screenshot and put it in a frame, they're that good. It helps that the team that worked on this anime took care to do all the research they could to depict everything from the house architecture, the rolling prairies, to life in 19th century Canada as accurately as possible, even visiting Canada itself to really get the details right. On that front, they succeeded with flying colors. Of course, the actual animation is no slouch either, with equally down-to-earth, realistic motion that favors naturalism over exaggeration (With the exception of scenes where we get to see Anne's imagination go into overdrive), with the character designs also reflecting this. I've heard some reviewers complain that Anne looks weird here, but that's the point. She's described that way in the book as well, so it makes sense that the character designers would make Anne look gangly and not pretty like her peers. Then again, there were plans to make Anne look more like a shoujo anime protagonist, in line with translator Hanako Muraoka's interpretation of the character, as detailed in that AnimeTudes article I linked, but that idea got scrapped because Takahata wanted her to look more realistic, a decision I feel was the right one. Speaking of realism, Anne of Green Gables is a series that lacks much in the way of conflict and is mainly a slice-of-life series. The characters actually behave and feel like real human beings, whose problems and daily lives feel real and down-to-earth rather than exaggerated just for the sake of milking drama like in a soap opera, and engage in all sorts of situations that people can relate to. I mean, what kid hasn't experienced dealing with the antics of rambunctious boys, trying to convince your parents to let you go to a late night event like a concert, dying your hair for the first time, or playing games involving daring people to do ridiculous things? Takahata and his team did an amazing job in developing the characters and showing them changing and growing as the series goes on, like with Anne going from an energetic, talkative kid to a more mature, restrained 16-year-old at the end of the series. Though because the series is 50 episodes long, and what few conflicts it shows are very far apart from each other, it can be very easy to dismiss the show as being boring and dull. You really need to be able to enjoy slice-of-life if you want to enjoy this series. But overall, the character development and writing here is master class. Even the soundtrack is quite lovely. Both opening and ending songs by Ritsuko Ohwada are all beautiful, swelling orchestral numbers that manage to both encapsulate the series' tone and Anne's moments of whimsy. The insert songs and background tracks are nice and have their own unique, rustic charm, whether it be soft oboes, bouncy violins, or even Japanese renditions of actual Victorian era songs like Nelly In The Hazel Dell. Every piece of music fits like a glove, and there were never any points where it felt out of place. The voice acting is also stellar and wonderfully down-to-earth when it needs to be, with Anne's voice actress, Eiko Yamada, making her voice acting debut here, which would cement her career for years to come. Don't expect Anne to sound like a high pitched cutesy moe girl here, because this isn't the series for that. I admit I still find it hard to believe that Kazuhiko Inoue plays Gilbert here, as you would not be able to recognize him whether you're familiar with his work or not. If you're interested in watching this adaptation specifically, the series has received complete fansubs twice, so it's not hard to watch in its original form. But one interesting thing about this series is that back in the eighties or nineties, it actually received a complete English dub which was produced in, of all places, South Africa, using an all-British voice cast. You can read more about its history here. It was posted on YouTube a few years back, and later someone spliced the English audio with higher quality footage from the Japanese blu-ray. I've been watching it quite a bit, and...surprisingly, it's a LOT better than I initially thought it'd be. Considering how dubbing was still a new concept, especially in other countries, most dubs from that era tend to...not be very good, especially ones not specialized in their native language, and I was honestly worried that this dub was going to be terrible. While I do question why the dub decided to hire British voice actors for a series that's clearly set in Canada, the dub itself is really good. All the actors put on fine, down-to-earth performances fitting their assigned characters. Even the narrator sounds like he wouldn't be out of place doing stuff for National Geographic. The only noticeable problems it has are the lip sync being slightly off at times and getting some names wrong (Anne's imaginary friend Katie Maurice is referred to as Kathy Morris, and the song Nelly In The Hazel Dell is referred to as Nelly In The Hazelnut Bush, though those got rectified in later episodes), though I've heard the latter is because the English dub used the German dub as its basis and not the Japanese version. Overall, I really love this series, flaws and all. The only real complaint I have with it is that when Anne is 15 years old, she comes off as a little too perfect, but that doesn't last for very long. The 1979 Anne of Green Gables anime isn't just a fantastic adaptation of Lucy Maud Montgomery's novel, but an amazing series that truly understands what it is and isn't afraid to be what it is, a quiet, wholesome, down-to-earth coming of age tale about a girl's life on a Canadian island. I know most people generally prefer the 1985 Kevin Sullivan movie, and I like that one too, but I find myself gravitating towards this series for its willingness to expand on the source material and truly make the most of it. Plus, Anne is becoming relevant again in light of the fact that there's going to be a new Anne of Green Gables anime adaptation due to air in spring of 2025. On one hand, I'm really interested in seeing how that adaptation tells the story, as there have been multiple anime adaptations of Western kids books before (Little Women and Dog of Flanders being two examples), but on the other hand, I really hope the staff on that series don't screw it up somehow, and there's already debate on whether it'll even live up to the legacy that the 1979 series established, or even respect the original book. I'm going to watch it regardless and see what it's like on its own merits. But whether you're an Anne of Green Gables fan, a World Masterpiece Theater fan, or somebody who is just sick and tired of all the isekai anime that get churned out every season and want something to watch that has more meat and substance to it, check this series out if you ever get the chance.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jan 25, 2025 Mixed Feelings
Man, Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning has me so conflicted. I've grown up with the series and have a strong attachment to it, even though I do feel Digimon Adventure 02 is one of the weaker seasons for a variety of reasons. I will admit that I've only seen the first two Tri movies and haven't seen the Kizuna movie, mainly because I hear those movies really screw around with the lore that the TV series established, made the cast act really out of character, and didn't treat the 02 cast well. So when it was announced that the 02 kids would get a third
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movie dedicated to them, Digimon fans were pretty hyped, seeing it as the producers apologizing for how badly they shelved the 02 cast when the Tri movies were being made. But I started to get worried when it was announced that the movie would focus on a new character who is apparently the actual first official DigiDestined. How would that even work? Didn't Tri already do that? But Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning was released into the wild, and...it's better than I expected it to be, and I did enjoy it quite a bit, but it's really held back by really questionable decisions.
After the events of Kizuna, the cast of Digimon Adventure 02—Davis, Yolei, Cody, TK, Kari, and Ken—are going about their lives and following their passions. One day, a gigantic DigiEgg appears at the top of Tokyo Tower, and a mysterious message appears all across the world: "May everyone in the world have friends. May they each have a Digimon." Other than that, it doesn't do anything over the course of the week, so the public considers it pretty harmless. Later, a mysterious man tries to climb Tokyo Tower to make contact with the egg, only to slip and fall. After he's saved by the kids and their Digimon, the man in question, Lui Ohwada (Yes, his name is actually spelled that way), explains that the giant DigiEgg is actually his old partner Digimon, Ukkomon, and that he is apparently the very first human to ever officially partner with a Digimon. The revelations and potential crises that follow will put everyone's relationships with their Digimon to the test, especially since Lui doesn't believe that humans and Digimon can ever truly be friends after what he himself has experienced. Okay, I'm going to get the positives out of the way first, as I actually did enjoy this movie quite a bit. Way more than I expected considering all that I've heard about both Tri and Kizuna, so don't take this or my rating to mean that I hate this movie, because I don't. Even though 02 isn't one of my favorite seasons, I did enjoy seeing the cast again, and it helps that Davis has become a lot less obnoxious and actually develops in this movie! The animation is great and I really appreciated that ExVeemon and Stingmon's DNA digivolving sequence—which had always been done in 3D in the series—was done in traditional 2D animation here. The music was really nice too, and even though I haven't heard the 02 music much since I haven't seen that season in Japanese yet beyond Hurricane Touchdown, it was used to great effect. And I enjoyed Lui and his story! I liked that The Beginning wasn't about saving the world from getting destroyed by a Saturday morning cartoon villain and that the villain in question isn't even a bad Digimon, just someone who didn't realize why their way of going about things was bad. I loved all of that, I liked Lui's character writing and his backstory, and the psychological and horror themes were also really well done! Seriously, I want to rate this movie so much higher than I am, so much higher...if it wasn't for the fact that The Beginning seems to be on a mission to completely ignore/retcon every single rule that the first two TV series established in regards to its lore! For one thing, Ukkomon is somehow able to give Lui one of his eyes, and this should not be possible because Digimon are not flesh and blood beings, just packets of data, and if Digimon die in the real world, they cannot be reborn. This was already established with Wizardmon's death in the first Adventure anime! But my biggest beef with The Beginning is that it claims that Ukkomon alone is responsible for not only the creation of Digivices, but the existence of DigiDestined as a whole, which is also not true. One of the episodes of Adventure established that a group of humans created the Crests and Digivices when Homeostasis scanned the data of the children who saw the Greymon/Parrotmon fight years before the events of the series. Hell, there was a group of DigiDestined that came before the Adventure cast, two of which were prominent characters in Tri, yet this movie tries to claim that Lui is somehow the very first DigiDestined, which completely goes against continuity! Like...why ignore the series' most basic lore? Why couldn't Lui just be a regular person who just happened to have problems with his Digimon, like with Willis in the Golden Digimentals movie? Willis didn't need to be made into this super special DigiDestined kid in order for his story to be compelling. Say what you will about Golden Digimentals' own continuity issues, at least you can chalk that up to having different staff from the TV series that didn't realize certain events in the movie would conflict with the TV series. Seriously, the whole movie could have been just Lui asking the 02 kids for help with Ukkomon and it would have been better off. It sucks that I can't like this movie more than I do, because there is a good story in there that has a lot of potential, but it's completely bogged down by the creators' attempts to completely ignore already established lore and continuity to make Lui more special than he really needs to be. Not to mention poor Angewomon gets completely nerfed and she doesn't get to do anything for the rest of the movie. My only other issue with the movie is with its English dub, which for the most part is good...but who the hell thought it was a good idea to make Robbie Daymond give Armadillomon a voice that makes him sound like Donald Duck?! I don't know if this was their attempt to be more faithful to Armadillomon's Japanese voice, but it really doesn't work here, and I say this as somebody who is a huge fan of Robbie Daymond! It really says a lot when Wayne Grayson of all people somehow manages to do a better take on Armadillomon than this English dub did, and Grayson's only in the recent re-dub of Golden Digimentals! Poor Robbie Daymond, you deserved so much better. Overall, Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning is an interesting experiment that I actually did enjoy to an extent, but again, its complete lack of interest in respecting its own lore and established continuity results in it being a very flawed experiment at best.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jan 16, 2025
Natsume Yuujinchou Shichi
(Anime)
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(According to MAL, this is my 600th completed anime!)
Hell yeah, more Natsume Yuujinchou! You guys know by now that I absolutely LOVE this series, and will gladly inject more of it into my veins like heroin any chance I'm able. And finding out that a seventh season of the show was going to be made? You bet your ass I was hyped as hell! Unlike with seasons 5 and 6, where I was deep in anime burnout and didn't get around to watching them until this year, I actually watched season 7 as it aired this time, and am gonna watch the dub when I ... have the time. All of this was awesome in and of itself, but it was just announced that Bushiroad is making a video game for the series set for consoles such as PC and Nintendo Switch! I hope to God that gets an English translation (And a good one at that!) or a physical release in the US, because I will eat that shit up! Man, we Natsume fans are eating like kings and queens! Like with my review for seasons 5 and 6, I'm not gonna go into a plot summary, as you already know by now what Natsume Yuujinchou is about. Why belabor the point? The animation and soundtrack are great as ever, a testament to how consistent both have been since the series' inception. There's really not much I can say about them that I haven't already said in my previous reviews of the last six seasons. I do like both the opening and ending songs, which are well sung and do a great job of conveying the series' atmosphere and aesthetic. Like I mentioned in my previous reviews of the series, Natsume as a series has always put a lot of focus on its characters, but it's only recently that it's started doing more with already established ones, like Taki, Nishimura, Kitamoto, and even Natori. Episode 7 reveals that Taki has an older brother (Who honestly looks like he could be her twin) and is focused on his issues regarding his relationship with their grandfather. The episode after that is told entirely from Nishimura's point of view and shows him dealing with a shapeshifting yokai disguising itself as Natsume while examining what their friendship means to them. Remember that mustache yokai with the big head who's always hanging around the Dog Circle? Episode 5 is an entire episode dedicated to him, giving it a surprising amount of character considering he's normally relegated to being the comic relief. In my opinion, this season's absolute best episode is the second-to-last one, where one prominent character gets some much needed background: Reiko. The series always established her as being a loner who made the Book of Friends, jump-starting the entire plot, but fans like myself have always wondered just how Reiko even started collecting yokai names, or why her modus operandi is challenging them to games or fights. Not only does this episode heavily expand on Reiko as a person and show how a misunderstanding caused her to become the person she was, that single event singlehandedly started Reiko's whole crusade of collecting yokai names and making the Book of Friends. Not only is it an absolute masterclass in terms of writing and character development, it actually made me tear up quite a bit, on par with earlier episodes like Hotaru's episode in season 1, or the episode in season 3 showing how Natsume came to live with the Fujiwaras. Consistency has always been Natsume's strong point, and even after almost two decades, it never lost its subtle touch and "less is more" philosophy. I mean, what other anime can you think of it that manages to make you care about an origami spirit? If I could name one issue I have with this particular season, it'd be that it didn't follow up on a pretty big reveal at the end of season 6. I won't spoil what that reveal is here, but if you're going to drop a big revelation like that, at least follow up on it! Though this season did make up for it with explaining why Reiko decided to gather youkai names in the first place. Plus, there is going to be another episode bundled with a blu-ray volume that's due to come out this April. But come on, you know me, that's not enough to kill my love affair with this series. I've been a Natsume fan since 2008, and that's not going to change any time soon. Although now I wonder: Is the series ever going to have a definitive end? The manga's been running since 2003, and from what I've researched, there's still some material left to cover should the anime decide to greenlight an eighth season. I'm more than happy to have my fill of more Natsume's Book of Friends, but as much as I adore the series, I don't want it to be one of those series that just goes on and on forever and overstay its welcome, even with the breaks between anime seasons. And again, you can't jump into this season without having seen the previous six, as it continues to build on what those past seasons established, so you'll be lost if you jump into the middle or end. But I'm not here to be a negative Nancy, and I still love this series all these years later, this season included. If there's ever more Natsume on the horizon, you can bet I'm ready to chow down!
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jan 3, 2025
Kitty to Mimmy no Atarashii Kasa
(Anime)
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So, let's talk about Hello Kitty! Even if you don't know her name, you've definitely seen her at least once in your life. The official mascot of a company called Sanrio, Hello Kitty is the second most financially successful franchise in human history, only beaten by Pokemon. First created in 1974, Hello Kitty has won many hearts with her cute design and wholesome innocence, and even now, merchandise of her and her family, friends, and cohorts continue to line shelves, as she's one of Japan’s most beloved cultural symbols, an emblem of creativity, community, and yes, cuteness, that has joined the pantheon of global pop
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culture. But would you believe that it actually took a while for her to start appearing in anime and cartoons? Many think she made her animation debut in the 1987 American cartoon Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater, but that's not true. She did make some non-speaking cameos in Sanrio's early movies like Nutcracker Fantasy, the first Unico movie, and Journey Through Fairyland, but her true animation debut was through a rather...odd stop-motion short film called Kitty and Mimmy's New Umbrella, which was bundled with one of the Unico movies for home video.
I say odd because the summary for Kitty and Mimmy's New Umbrella makes it seem like its titular characters are just spending the episode playing with new umbrellas that their mother buys them. That is a good chunk of the movie's plot...but it also happens to come with weird musical sequences involving talking bugs, flying flowers, puddles that transport the girls into the sky, and scenes involving a mole constantly getting stepped on. No, really. This Hello Kitty movie is weird in the same way that Sanrio's other stop motion movie Nutcracker Fantasy is weird, and I mean that in a positive manner. Then again, the two properties have the same staff working on them, which doesn't surprise me one bit. Kitty and Mimmy's New Umbrella is one half Kitty and her sister just playing around, and the other half is eerie, ethereal, almost psychedelic stop motion animated sequences that I'm pretty sure is a result of the animators being self-indulgent and having fun just because they can. And really, the animation by itself is really good, especially by the standards of the eighties. Sure, the stop-motion isn't Laika level quality, but it does have a lot of charm to it that you can't easily find in most productions like this anymore. The actual animation is fairly smooth, and the musical sequences are lively and whimsical as they should be, even if the sequence with the dancing bugs feels rather superfluous. There's also some neat little details that add to the experience, like how when Kitty cries, her bow randomly disappears and reappears when she makes her cartoony crying face, among other things...though why is there a bell ringing sound whenever their tails wag? There is one point where Kitty and Mimmy read a letter that's written in rather fractured English, complete with Mimmy's name being misspelled. But the set pieces are really nice for what they are, and it's clear that the animators really put a lot of care into bringing these iconic characters to life. Speaking of the characters, don't go into this movie expecting there to be a lot of character development. This is clearly aimed at toddlers and preschoolers, and the movie just consists of Kitty and Mimmy playing around and having weird adventures involving dancing bugs, that's it. The other characters are just kind of...there, not really doing anything besides sing or take up space. Or in the case of the mole, being stepped on by the girls all the time. Poor guy. One character only appears at the very end of the movie and doesn't do much, but with the film being as short as it is, it can't really afford to do more than it really has to. Yeah, the characters are kind of vanilla, but sometimes vanilla can be good once in a while. The soundtrack and songs are very nice too, as is the voice acting. This is the first time Hello Kitty has ever been given a voice, provided by the late Fuyumi Shiraishi before Megumi Hayashibara would be cemented as her primary voice actress. For a short movie that marks Hello Kitty's first full appearance in the animated medium, I say Kitty and Mimmy's New Umbrella managed to hit a home run on that front. It's not going to bring the house down, as it's very clearly a cute movie aimed squarely at preschoolers, and it's content to be just that. I certainly don't mind it, as not only is Kitty and Mimmy's New Umbrella a cute, wholesome, whimsical kids movie, it laid the groundwork for Hello Kitty's animated appearances in the future, so Kitty fans owe the movie that much.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 21, 2024 Not Recommended
Man, it sucks when I can't enjoy something. It especially sucks when it's something you were looking forward to. The subject of today's review, Stories of Girls Who Couldn't Be Magicians, or Mahoutsukai ni Narenakatta Onna no Ko no Hanashi, actually has a bit of a story behind it. In 2018, a company called Project Anima held a contest allowing entrants to submit ideas in the form of novels, scripts, manga drafts, illustrations, and so on, and the winners would have their pieces adapted into anime. MahoNare, as I'll be referring to it for the sake of brevity, took the grand prize for the contest's
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fantasy/another world category, and the anime was set to air in 2021, but for some reason was delayed. Luckily, the show was set to debut in October of 2024. And hey, I'm always down for more cute witch/magical girl stories. Unfortunately, MahoNare wound up not being one of the better ones. This one had the potential to be good, but squandered any opportunity it had to rise above being mediocre.
The story centers on a young girl, Kurumi Mirai, who loves magic and wants to be a magician. When she was little, she met a magician who gave her a mysterious notebook, which Kurumi finds out is given to students of the prestigious Letran School of Magic and Magecraft, the only known institution that trains wizards for the International Mage Alliance. Kurumi studies hard so she can get assigned to the Magic Class...only to find that she didn't make the cut, even with her good grades. Kurumi is crestfallen, as she's always dreamed of becoming a magician, but now that that door is closed to her, she's resigned herself to being stuck in the Standard Class, where they study anything but magic...until their homeroom teacher, a strange, tiny woman named Minami Suzuki, announces that she's going to teach magic to everyone in the Standard Class, status quo be damned. But Minami's brand of magic isn't like the magic that Letran usually practices. Is there a chance for Kurumi to finally fulfill her life-long dream after all? Yeah, this show is pretty much trying really hard to be Little Witch Academia. Let's be real here. Magic school, girl who seemingly can't do magic, a stoic rival with a girl posse who at first hates the MC but later becomes her friend, you've seen it all before. The plot of the differences between ancient and modern magic give off High Guardian Spice vibes, while the side plot of gatekeeping magic brings thoughts of Witch Hat Atelier to me. I will admit, one thing MahoNare does have going for it is its art design. The actual animation isn't much to write home about, and it does its job decently, both the fantastical and the mundane, but its art direction is quite honestly beautiful. It's not the most visually striking show in the autumn 2024 season, but it has a style that's all its own, with charming, watercolor backgrounds straight out of a children's fairy tale, full of whimsy and eye-catching vibrancy. The character designs are fun too, done by Lily Hoshino of Mawaru Penguindrum fame. I have less to say about the soundtrack, though...how in the hell did they manage to get Yoko Shimomura to work on this?! I do not remember her working on anime soundtracks unless they were tied to a game adaptation or something, like Legend of Mana. Though if I'm being honest, this isn't one of her better soundtracks. I couldn't tell you the first thing about it, or the ending theme. The opening song is nice though, and it's done by PuffyAmiYumi. Kinda nice to hear them again. What was the last thing they worked on before this? One of the endings for ReLife, which was in 2016? Dang, that's a long time. Good to know they're still active! Unfortunately, that's all the positive things I have to say about MahoNare, because everything else about it is a mess. First off, this show has way too many characters. Not as many as Lapis Re:Lights, but 12 episodes is not enough to handle an ensemble cast this big, and they don't get fleshed out beyond their one archetype, so they all come across as extremely bland and one-note. As a result, the series feels really cluttered. A lot of them feel like they're just there to take up space and not much else. Hell, one girl doesn't do anything outside of translate what Minami's pet frog is saying to Kurumi and Yuzu and just disappears, so she comes off like a random plot device than a three-dimensional character. Even the two main girls, Kurumi and Yuzu, are as cliche and bland as white rice. Yuzu just feels like a knock-off of Diana from Little Witch Academia but without everything that made Diana work as a character, and while Yuzu is the only one who gets any real, noticeable development, her change from stoic alpha bitch to Kurumi's closest friend seems to come out of nowhere, feeling more like the writers wanted to change her character when it was convenient rather than actually showing her changing. Going back to Kurumi, as much as I want to like her arc, she honestly feels like a side character rather than the main protagonist. All throughout the series, she hardly ever does anything on her own and spends a lot of her time being indecisive or angsty. There were so many times where I wanted to smack her because she spends so much time whining and unable to act when it matters most. She doesn't manage to do anything noteworthy until episode 10. A character like her might have been fine as a side one, but she fails to deliver as the main protagonist. In all honesty, Minami feels more like the main character than Kurumi does, because Minami is the only character who really moves the plot forward in any capacity. I wouldn't blame anyone if they thought she was the main character, and I feel like the show would be better off if they focused more on Minami than the kids. Also, some of the characters' names are really dumb. Lemone Juicy? Really? Why would you name someone that? Speaking of her, good God her voice is screechy and annoying as hell! Also, there's one point where one of Yuzu's girl posse gets angry at Kurumi for supposedly stealing Yuzu, but this never gets followed up on, so any development she could have had is just thrown out the window. Though that's not even mentioning how slipshod the story is. MahoNare feels like a longer show that's crammed into one 12-episode season. A good chunk of it just focuses on boring, boiler-plate magic school shenanigans, more interested in meandering and goofing off than actually telling its story. The plot doesn't kick in until a quarter of the way through, but even then its execution falls extremely flat in every way. I have to go into spoilers here because my complaints about the story won't make sense if I don't explain them in detail. *******SPOILER********* So it's revealed that the principal of Letran, Northern Harris (Seriously? Who names their kid Northern?), designed a magic system that makes magic more convient for himself and anyone he deems worthy, but it comes at the cost of their energy and lifespan, and ancient magic is actually magic from nature itself, which he sealed away for...some reason. Yeah, the show never really explains why Northern hates ancient magic, and his evil plan makes absolutely no sense because of it. Honestly, Northern himself is a terrible villain because not only does the show not go into more detail as to why he believes his cause is better, which definitely would have helped, but he comes off more like an entitled brat throwing a tantrum because boo-hoo how dare they hate his method of doing things. He has no charisma, no flair, nothing to make him stand out from your regular Saturday morning cartoon villain. For comparison's sake, I've been playing Metaphor: ReFantazio recently, and I find the character of Louis Guiabern to be a fantastic villain because not only does he get shit done people's opinions be damned, he's actually smart and charismatic, knows how to persuade others to his point of view, has an understandable backstory that informs who he is without excusing his actions, and absolutely owns his villainy, but has enough nuance, self-awareness, and depth to him that the story actually works with a character like him driving it. Northern is just...a mediocre villain who, in the end even when he gets defeated, doesn't even learn his lesson because the show ends on a dumb cliffhanger revealing that he has other stuff going on. I'm sure MahoNare is trying to go for the message that modern conveniences don't always work when the chips are down, but if you ask me, Witch Hat Atelier handled the whole gatekeeping magic for the elite plot better. Actually, beyond Northern being a half-baked bad guy, MahoNare doesn't even bother to answer a lot of questions or resolve its plot threads. Why do most of the staff at Letran turn into animals? The school nurse is apparently a cat, but why does he change into a cat? Is it some kind of curse? And what's the deal with that kid who claims to be Kurumi's brother? Why doesn't he ever talk to her? He spends the whole series just standing around and being mysterious, and he never so much as interacts with her. How does he fit into this whole mess? Does Kurumi even know she has a brother? The show never explains this kid's motivations or what his end game is, and the cliffhanger ends with him getting kidnapped. Like...the show has so many questions that it doesn't bother to answer or resolve, and there's no confirmation of a second season right now, so what was even the point of all this? This is what I mean when I say MahoNare feels like a longer show compressed into a format that's too short to handle it. It sets up these plot threads and characters acting in the background but refuses to really do anything with them. Hell, Kurumi never even finds out that Minami is the magician she met years ago (Yeah, I figured this out in episode one because they're voiced by the same person. Minami doesn't even bother changing her tone of voice), nor that her grandmother was a Letran student too. *******END SPOILER********* Tl;dr, MahoNare spends more time goofing off and on a cliche "stop the machine from blowing up and destroying everything" plot than actually answering important questions, developing its characters, resolving important plot threads. God, I really hate that I couldn't enjoy this show, because it does have interesting ideas. But the staff made to work on this were just not the right people for the job, and there are so many other series that tackle this premise or similar ones better, like Witch Hat Atelier, Little Witch Academia, The Worst Witch, The Owl House, and so on. If you want a short, breezy witch girl series to show to your kids, MahoNare is fine, but has nothing of real substance and has nothing to offer beyond its shiny, sugary frosting. Seriously, just check out the stuff I mentioned above, you'll get much more out of them than Stories Of Girls Who Couldn't Be Magicians.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Dec 18, 2024
Sekai no Owari to Majo no Koi
(Manga)
add
Mixed Feelings
Okay, real talk: For all you Little Witch Academia fans out there, I actually haven't watched the TV series for that yet. I've seen the first OVA, but that's about it. Don't worry, I plan on remedying that, as I just watched the first two episodes of LWA on Netflix, with intent to watch the rest. It's kinda surprising I haven't gotten around to watching that, as I've seen and read plenty of other cute witch themed media such as The Owl House, Flying Witch, Mahou Tsukai Precure, Kiki's Delivery Service (Both book and anime), Witch Hat Atelier, Majo to Neko no Hanashi, and as
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of recently, Eden of Witches. Which reminds me, I should also finish watching the Netflix version of The Worst Witch. But why are we talking about witches? Well, today, I finished another witch-themed manga series, called A Witch's Love At The End Of The World. How did I like it? It's...alright. I really wish I enjoyed this more, which is a shame because it has some neat ideas and a very ambitious story, but this is one of those series where its short length and a lack of time to flesh everything out resulted in it being unable to carry the weight of its premise.
In a world where sorcery is real, witches were persecuted for years by frightened humans until the eighteenth century. In a bid to survive, witches pledged themselves to the rulers of their countries, and in time, all countries would come to have their own witches working in the shadows. Now in the present day, when the strength of a witch determines the strength of her country, humanity seeks stronger and stronger witches, even establishing a school to train aspiring witches—all while oblivious to the seeds of resentment and revenge that lives on in the heart of every single witch. At Sternenlichtl, a prestigious school where witches learn their craft, Alice Keating is the brightest girl in her year and the descendent of the school's founder. Her world is turned upside down when she is assigned to be the tutor to Mari Muguruma, a strange girl who seems out of place among the other witches. As the two grow closer, they also begin to learn the secrets of their respective worlds. For the sake of brevity, I'm just going to shorten it's title to Witch's Love. If there's one word I can use to describe Witch's Love, its ambitious. Seriously, in just three volumes, Witch's Love goes from being a slice-of-life yuri series in a magic school to discovering a centuries long elaborate plot to destroy all of humanity and trying to stop it, wasting absolutely no time in getting its plot rolling and committing to it. I actually liked the overall story and how the various characters play into it, as Witch's Love has a lot of neat ideas, like witches raising their pupils to focus only on revenge, discarding feelings like love and genuine compassion for their cause, and how falling in love causes a witch to lose their magic. Those are really interesting, though the series doesn't really flesh them out much, other than a few brief reveals at the end. If Witch's Love was longer, it would have had much more room to explore those ideas and the history behind why Sternenlitchtl enforces them with an iron fist. Yeah, let's not waste any time. Witch's Love could have been something amazing, but all of its flaws are due to it being only three volumes long. This results in a lot of things being really rushed, such as character development, pacing, and world-building. A lot of the story's lore is just sort of exposition dumped in sporadic intervals rather than being shown more organically, kind of like how The Heike Story, as a result of only being 11 episodes long, was made to truncate a lot of events from the novel and have a bunch of characters info-dump their backstories and activities to get to the important stuff faster. As a result of trying to rush through its story, the characters and what development they get feel very half-baked. Plus, a good chunk of the story is supposed to be romance between Alice and Mari, but the way the story presents said romance feels extremely shallow in that the scenes that are supposed to establish their budding romance come off less like the characters are genuinely growing closer and more like they're only interacting because the author made them do so. It doesn't help that for a series that proclaims to be a yuri romance, there's nothing to really indicate that they're even falling in love beyond hand holding and admiration, not to mention they don't even kiss or act like a couple, so I question why this even needed to be a romance at all. Actually, the cast of characters besides one also suffer from the book's short length, as again, even their development is rushed, resulting in them coming off as bland and cliche. Alice is the stoic ace who becomes nicer thanks to Mari, the clumsy yet bewildered problem child, and so on. Alice's girl posse is just there to take up space, and while I actually do like what they did with Miriam at first, she gets a rather unceremonious end and not much beyond her role in the plot. Plus, the series makes this huge deal about Mari's mother being important to the plot, but said character only appears in two scenes and has absolutely no impact on the story itself, so why bother making her important if you're not even going to do anything with her? The only character who is actually somewhat interesting is Madam Dolly, the headmistress of Sternenlichtl, and her spotlight chapter is the only one that doesn't feel like it's expected to finish everything under a tight deadline. It's a shame, because, again, had Witch's Love been given more time, the author could have fleshed out her characters even more, and maybe have them relax a bit rather than have the whole story feel like it's being resolved 25 chapters earlier than it should. Which is weird because the author notes in one of the volumes that Witch's Love was originally going to be just two volumes, but was expanded to three. Yeah, this really should have been way longer. As for the art...it's okay. I'm not familiar with Kujira as an artist, but from what I can see, her artwork is serviceable, if a tad underwhelming. There aren't much in the way of backgrounds, but I did like the character designs, with the exception of Alice's reverse mullet that makes her look like someone chopped the back of her hair off. But having been spoiled by the likes of Witch Hat Atelier and Eden of Witches, the lack of attention to detail in everything, from the art to the setting is just yet another example of how bum-rushed Witch's Love feels. It's a serviceable story, and I would very much like to see it be expanded on in every way, because there is potential for something great here. Sadly, A Witch's Love At The End of the World is both too short to carry the weight of its material and crippled by its own ambition. Seriously, it feels like a series that got cancelled even though it's technically complete. If you want a short read that you don't need to think too hard about, Witch's Love won't be a waste of your time, but plenty of other witch series exist that manage to do everything that Witch's Love didn't have the time to do.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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